


The Soft, Slow End of Time

by greebled



Series: Learning To Relax [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Dimitri Finds Meds that Kinda Work, Discord Sex (Phone Sex For Gamers), Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Marijuana, Mutual Masturbation, Phone Sex, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:21:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26119474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greebled/pseuds/greebled
Summary: “You have a beautiful voice. The most beautiful voice, Dedue.”"Thank you," he says, charmed, but with the slightest hesitation to his voice that Dimitri doesn't care to unpack. "How did tonight," a pause. "Go."The idea of the conversation being whisked elsewhere lights a fire under him. "Um, fine. Fine. I'm fine." He circles back, like he's underlining something important for someone he's tutoring. "I, er, just really love listening to you talk."An amused little exhale on the other end, and then a little mercy. "You've said. What would you love to talk to me about, Dimitri?"Dimitri is still high when he wakes up, so he phones a friend.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro
Series: Learning To Relax [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878916
Comments: 17
Kudos: 66





	The Soft, Slow End of Time

_I wanna hear your voice  
Like the trees behind this restaurant  
You can see them through that roofless building  
That was once somebody's home  
_-Dan Deacon, "Learning to Relax"

When he wakes up, it’s because everything hurts and he can’t breathe very well.

Reluctantly, he cracks his eye open, and sees that his chin is all smashed against his chest. He must have slid down the couch as soon as he drifted off. He rolls over and down, until his legs tangle under the table and his cheek is on the crumbly, gray carpet.

Dimitri snorts like a horse. This is objectively gross and uncomfortable, but he’s slept in grosser, more uncomfortable places. 

Normally, he would censor his observations, even in his own head. He would first think about the dimness of the room, maybe waxing domestic about how Claude must have unplugged the lights for them on his way out. He’d think about how not much time had passed at all. He’d think about how that was fine. He rarely slept through the night, anyway. He would think how charming it was that Edelgard snored. Her hand dangled halfway to the ground where it fell out of his hair, the rest of her slumped over in her makeshift nest. He’d think about how pleasant this night had been. He’d think about how having her trust him made him feel. All that wholesome, nonthreatening fluff befitting a man like him.

But he didn’t think about any of that, because despite all the crumbs and the heart-warmth and the cricks in his neck, his entire universe was attuned only to how _inconsolably_ horny he was.

Dimitri does everything he can to keep his sexuality under lock and key. It’s an easier feat now than it used to be, since his medication installed a handrail in his mind’s most treacherous places at the expense of barricading access to his libido. Even when he’s alone, he’s pragmatic with his urges, so much so whether or not he _wants_ to touch himself has little to do with it. 

He’s been so repressed for so long, when people talk about thinking with their dicks, he wonders if they’re making it up.

Apparently not, because Dimitri has to scramble for control to prevent himself from humping at the carpet like an animal. Just for no reason, staring dazedly at all the garbage under the couch. Usually he can barely bring himself to even look at porn, but he’s dangerously close to cranking it with a head full of nothing, with only an out-of-focus Arby’s receipt and a scattered assortment of missing pens to cheer him on.

_Hm… Would that be so bad? What’s less judgmental than an Arby’s receipt?_

Edelgard snakes her arm back into her nest.

Edelgard, the person sleeping directly over him.

Mortified, Dimitri decides that he needs to get the hell out of here.

Coordinating his sprawling limbs of his too-big body is like trying to turn a huge truck around on a tiny road. It’s a game of Twister that nobody is winning. Every few movements, he wonders why he’s even bothering with the process and gives up, forgetting why he was even trying, and wills sleep to reclaim him in whatever ragdoll corpse pose he gets locked into.

The moment he’s without a distraction, though, he’s hot all over, tingling all over, his imagination taking the discomfort and spinning it into something decadent. _Goddess, he would be awfully easy to pin like this, wouldn’t he?_ He shivers, reflexively tries to grab the sheets, but his slightly-too-long fingernails only scrape at the carpet. Obviously. He’s still on the floor. _Where was all this even coming from!?_

Dimitri needs to-

 _The floor? That’s an idea. Even if he was gentle with him, which he always was, every point of contact with the rough ground would be worn pink. For hours, maybe, or would it be days?_ He swallows back a whine. It isn’t until he thinks back on why he swallows it that the disgust hits him all over again.

Dimitri, get out of here!

In a burst of focus, he sits himself up all the way. His shoulders are loose and heavy. It’s all he can do to keep his head up, and just barely. He blinks in a way that somehow manages to feel out of sync, even though that’s physically impossible. 

For the hundredth time this evening, he paws at his face, even being naughty and pressing the pads of his fingers behind his patch to massage around the socket and the scarring, at all the little muscles there. People who think digging around their ears with Q-Tips is the height of G-Rated pleasure, he almost pities them. 

Something’s off.

With all the grace of mashing together soggy puzzle pieces, and a moment of staring at his hands like some sort of stereotype, it clicks together. He must still be stoned. He remembers that _that’s_ a thing that happened, and he chuckles quietly. 

Not one, but _two_ people thought it was a good idea to get _him_ stoned. Like he was some kind of _person_ , or something. This thought makes him feel a feeling very intense and heartwarming. He misplaces it for humor, which is fortunate, because having a breakthrough and fighting back sobs would have been a lot more awkward than fighting back this clumsy laughter, especially considering the whole boner thing.

He leans heavy on the table to get the rest of the way to his feet. It’s easier to coax himself into motion with his attention split like this. After a pause to shovel a handful of cold fries into his mouth, he’s pleasantly surprised to find that walking is an easier feat than all his earlier languishing would suggest. 

He makes it to his room without further incident, and peers down the hall at El’s sleep pile. Dimitri is aware of every single joint in his fingers as he turns the knob. He’s extra, extra careful not to wake her as he opens the door and slips inside, then extra, extra, extra carefully shuts it, not even letting the handle click on its own.

And then he’s out of there.

He puts his forehead against the cold weight of the door, and he breathes. Just like before, it takes no time at all for the pull of his body to overtake him. He palms himself through his baggy sleep shorts, finally, and gasps in honest surprise to find how hard he is. It’s like he’s feeling himself for the first time, or at the very least the first time with this brain chemistry; it courses through his whole body, just futzing with himself through slippery fabric like this. 

He hardly knows what to do with himself. 

As if on cue, a buzz in his pocket shakes him from his fragmented fantasy. 

When he takes his phone from his pocket, he has to clamp his thighs together, as if to promise his cock he hasn’t forgotten about it. The too-bright rectangle of the screen burns his vision with little shapes, but he can still glean the gist through the ghostly confetti.

It’s a good night message from Dedue. Almost definitely sent while he’s in bed. Where he is, the moon is probably shining all cool and calm on him, on his silvery bedhead and silky, lilac bedspread. Probably in his underwear, maybe less, being devastatingly handsome. Thinking about him. 

He wonders what else Dedue might do winding down before bed.

Thinking about him.

Dimitri’s cock does not care if thinking that is rude, and twitches.

Without even processing what the message says, he fumbles through the gunmetal gamer gray interface of the app. The dial tone plays just loud enough to put the fear of the Goddess in him. He takes a couple steps back, which breaks the spell, and suddenly he’s panicking. What is he doing? Who does he think he is? He’s only known Dedue for, what, a decade? And fooled around with him, what, several times!? 

This is too forward. 

He ruffles a hand through his hair and blinks blindly at the dark, empty room, one that’s about to be a lot emptier without the promise of Dedue calling him in it now and then. He paces in circles. He’s dizzy. The phone has been ringing for _hours_ , he’s sure.

Just when he’s about to snap his phone in two to stop the ringing, the dial tone stops on its own. Dimitri makes a small, strangled noise as he tries to yank his voice box into twelve different apologies at once. He pants, looks away, tries to get his thoughts in order enough to hang up. Before he can, he hears Dedue’s voice on the other end, warm and familiar, and his worries dissipate so abruptly he collapses back into a bed. He lets his legs dangle off the side. He feels like he’s just come home after a long, grueling hike.

“Is everything alright?”

“Dedue.” The scratchy huskiness of his own tone surprises him, makes him crack up a little, but what really soothes him is the steadiness on the other end. “You have a beautiful voice. The most beautiful voice, Dedue.”

“Do I.” Dedue isn’t the type to fluster outwardly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Dimitri knows him well enough by now to know the signs. He can see it now, the smallest straightening of his spine, a twitch of his fingers.

“You do," he sighs. He holds the phone closer to his cheek. Well, now he has him. Dimitri makes a sound like he's about to say something, but loses his train of thought. Or, maybe he just loses his nerve. He goes quiet.

"Thank you," he says, charmed, but with the slightest hesitation to his voice that Dimitri doesn't care to unpack. "How did tonight," a pause. "Go."

The idea of the conversation being whisked elsewhere lights a fire under him. "Um, fine. Fine. I'm fine." He circles back, like he's underlining something important for someone he's tutoring but wants them to figure out why on their own. "I, er, just really love listening to you talk."

An amused little exhale on the other end, and then a little mercy. "You've said. What would you love to talk to me about, Dimitri?"

He isn’t quite sure how to breach this subject, but now that he's not panicking anymore the rub of the head of his cock on his shorts is driving him insane. Even as he occupies his hands on the grip of his phone, the hem of his shirt, it demands his focus. He swallows. "I ...miss you," he says, all hushed like it's a secret. A shift of his hips makes his next inhale shake a little. Dedue goes to speak, but Dimitri talks over him. “Ah, I miss you. I, I will not say I need you, in case you are busy, but in the event that, that you are not-”

Quickly, clipped: “I’m not busy.”

“Dedue, I _need_ you. I need you here.” It spills out of him in a rush. It’s only by some miracle that he doesn’t shout it from the rooftops, that it comes as a whisper instead. He’s so flushed he feels feverish with it. Even still, he only massages the insides of his thighs, teasing himself. “I need you so badly it woke me up. Goddess, I...” He wants to go into detail, but his last vestiges of self-consciousness win out, his train of thought halting in favor of another useless little plea. “D… Dedue…”

A distance to the northwest, a man hums an appraising note in his relative's spare bedroom. “So,” Dimitri can’t see him, but he can only imagine the slight hint of a smile. “It seems I owe you a dollar.”

In the calamity of it all, Dimitri had totally forgotten their bet. Question: Would Edelgard even stick around, or would she just take the drugs and go home?

Dimitri, thumbs flying as he paced around the lobby, said over the course of a small essay that he was not only certain she would, but that they'd talk late into the night about their feelings and their difficult past, rebuilding their relationship stronger than ever and being the best of friends for the rest of their lives.

"😬", came Dedue's measured response.

“Oh, _keep_ it,” Dimitri huffs, and he hears a low roll of a chuckle in response. He swallows, tilts his face towards the ceiling. Raw as this all feels, there are no sharp edges to it, and he finds himself unable to be upset. “Is it… Damn it.” He sighs, seeing no reason not to gently grope himself now that the cat’s out of the bag. “Is it that, er, obvious? That I am less than sober? I thought I was being rather composed.”

"I suppose you're being polite, but, if I can be honest,” There’s so much fondness in Dedue’s voice, Dimitri thinks he might burst. "It's glaringly obvious, yes."

He may still have a handful of sloppily-wrapped erection, but at that remark Dimitri manages to call upon his senses just enough to tap the brakes. "I-is that alright?" His guilt trickles back in through the cracks. "I should have been honest from the beginning."

"It has been... Under two minutes." Reminds Dedue, his voice far as he checks the time. "And you hardly deceived me." Maybe it’s because he has the phone mashed to his ear, or maybe it’s because of the high, but when he hears the creak of Dedue’s mattress, Dimitri swears he can feel it. The fondness begins to condense into something richer, darker, more intense. “You don’t have to be composed, if you’d prefer it. I think _I_ would prefer it, too. What's on your mind?”

He whimpers, he can’t help it, rutting against the curve of his fingers. He can’t get a grip around himself with the fabric in the way, so he wriggles the elastic bad of his shorts down as he gasps his confession. “I want you… S-sexually.” _Dumb_ . C’mon, Dimitri, he’s giving you permission. “I want you to touch me. _Now._ It feels like a waste to be alone in this state. I keep thinking- I’m mad thinking about it. Angry about it. You should be here. You could hold me down and I would just-” His cock is freed at last, and the change in environment makes him groan unabashedly. “I’d do anything. I’d do _any_ thing.”

This gets a reaction out of Dedue, a sharp intake of breath. His dick throbs with it, and he looks down for the first time at it all exposed. Even in the low, low light, he can see himself curved and aching, drooling in a thin line towards his stomach. He shuffles up on his elbows to get a better look, letting slip another hungry noise. He licks his palm, and spends some time moaning quietly around his own fingers, sizing up his own cock, pumping them in and out. A small, choked gasp comes from his phone, reminding him he isn’t alone.

“De-Dedue,” he slurs around his digits. “Are you touching yourself?”

A grunt, a shuffle as the receiver is put close enough to pick up on his breathing. Dedue doesn’t have the extra burst of courage Dimitri does, so he only answers in another muted noise of pleasure. Dimitri returns it in kind, rolling his hips, but then he says “I’m… I am not.”

Perhaps talking this out beforehand would have been a good idea, because Dedue stills, confused. "Ah, um," Rumbles Dedue, perhaps against his pillow. "Is that alright?"

“O-oh, by all means, continue," fumbles Dimitri. "I just got distracted."

When the sigh he hears back comes so transparently relieved, he laughs hoarsely, watching his erection bob with it.

"Distracted how?" Dedue prompts. 

Dimitri hums. “I’m unused to feeling so… Much. I’m so hard for you, my cock looks so good,” he breathes. Slowly, he reaches down to smear a finger across the fluid beading at his tip, a strange mix of deep curiosity and arousal. When he repeats himself, the emotion makes its way into his voice. “I got _distracted.”_

Dimitri can definitely hear the sound of springs creaking in a Duscur King mattress. “N-now you understand how I feel,” comes his reply. "Focus. I want you to."

And so, he does. Propping his phone to his ear with his opposite shoulder, he reaches down at long last, wrapping his slick palm around his length. It’s so much already, he has to bite down on his lip to keep from crying out. Even then the keen he emits makes a dog in the apartments across the street wake up with a jolt. He swears all shaky under his breath, slipping his hand in shuddering motions so klutzy they loop around from not very good to so bad he can pretend someone else is doing it. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” coaxes Dedue.

“C-can’t,” he chokes. He’s mesmerized by the sight of the glistening head of his cock fucking through his grip. “Can’t be loud.”

“I can’t, either,” comes a gruff reply. It’s muffled in ruffling fabric. Heat swamps his face and chest as Dimitri envisions it; Dedue masturbating facedown in the pillow, bucking his hips into his hand, or maybe something else. “Whisper, then, like, ngh, like we’re trying to be quiet, together.”

He has to shut his eye to even think clearly enough for words. “We talked about sex. I-in a joking… Manner. Earlier. About things being too big,” attempts Dimitri, voice shaking with the effort. He twists his wrist and wants to weep with how good it feels. “Claude told me I could fit... Anything inside me right now, big as I- high as I- and I- Goddess,” just thinking about it, he draws in his knees, propping himself up at a better angle. “I wish you were here to test that theory.”

“You,” splutters Dedue, but Dimitri isn’t finished.

“I can’t look at a single surface in this dorm without thinking about how badly I want you to fuck me on it.”

Dedue’s voice isn’t built for the needy little noises his arousal is asking of him. It makes Dimitri’s pace quicken, makes him croon his name.

When he looks down, he has a view of his stomach, its alien softness. He hardly felt connected to his body enough to care much past mild disappointment when this particular side effect took root. Now, though, he feels completely in his skin and out-of-body all at once, enough to think _“that’s mine!”_ and _“that’s hot!”_ in tandem when precum dapples the rolling skin there. He thrusts up and jerks down and almost never times it right, but, oh, when he does.

Just as his vision begins to fail him, he hears Dedue practically sob his release. For whatever reason, Dimitri feels the hot splurt of his own cascade down his knuckles before it hits him he’s come at all, kicking him all disoriented and addled into the most intense aftershocks he’s ever had. 

He chokes, nearly silent, as his back arches into it. _“Fuck, fuck, fuck,”_ he hisses, like he’s terrified life after this orgasm will have no place for him. _Okay_ is something he’s still learning how to be, _Good_ comes few and far between, and _this-_

Once again, Dedue’s voice, gentled by all this, roots him back into something just a shade more pleasant than reality. “You’re alright, Dimitri,” he croons, taken-apart and shuddering as he is. “I’m here. I’m with you.” 

Dimitri gasps a breath and feels his muscles relax again, settling back into place. Ripples of comfort lap at him, and he lets himself think he can lie back and feel them. He doesn’t quite get there, but he gets close. “Fuck,” he says again, a breathy little thing this time. Close will do. Close is nice.

When he swears again, he's laughing just a little.

“There you are,” comes the reply. Soft, warm, near to the mic but on the other end of the universe. Dimitri hugs his arm around his chest and tries to pretend. Before he can find the words to admit it, Dedue murmurs it first. 

“I would... Hold you, if I could.”

Dedue has never been one for words, so uncertain and simple as they are, they’re enough, too. 

Idly, he traces his fingers down the mess he’s made. He wipes his hand on a book on the bed. He looks around. They’re everywhere. When did he start putting books on his bed? 

It’s almost as nice as pillow talk, having Dedue mumble to him all sleepy and blissed out as he mops himself clean and finds some less-spunky clothes to throw on. He even asks Dedue to be totally quiet as he takes the phone into the bathroom to wash his hands. Now, Dimitri asks him about his day, about his relatives, all that. For some, this would be a dreaded return to the mundane, but Dimitri genuinely wants to know, even if he’s spacey and odd. Dedue is charmed by his bumbling attempts at being an active participant.

“Surely you don’t have to clean up that thoroughly now,” Dedue offers. “Come to bed.”

Dimitri _yearns_. 

Then, he takes his fresh pajama pants off for the fifth time, finding he’d put them on backwards again. How many backwardses did these things have? “Were it with you, my love, I would in a heartbeat. Since that is not the case,” he grunts, pulls them up. “I want to ensure El is not alone, if she wakes up from another terror.”

He hums, drifting off. Duscur is a couple hours behind, so it’s firmly late night there while Dimitri experiences the beginnings of a very early morning. “She was right to reach out to you.”

For not the first time this evening, Dimitri feels something very strongly without having the slightest idea what it could be, other than that it makes the corner of his eye prickle. “I, well, not... Inherently. It is not as if we know each other, anymore. By all means, we should have never seen each other again. There isn’t a script for it.” He tilts his chin, grasping at this barely-formed, profound concept. “It is less that I am the right person to be with her tonight, and more that I have decided to be the right person, consciously. Even if it may not make sense, I thought, but, what if it did?”

Dedue doesn’t say anything for a while, then finally says in his full-hearted, I-don’t-laugh-much-but-that’s-hilarious way: “Whatever it is Claude gave you, can you put some aside for when I visit?”

Dimitri pads back into the living room feeling much more grounded than when he left it. Now, he’s just a bit muzzy around the edges, a bit sluggish in his movements, the usual noise in his head muted just so, and he's dead tired. The sun is just barely starting to rise, the view out their window dim blue rather than black. The half-life of his experience has passed.

His guest has moved a bit in her sleep, and now rests in a loose ball. He can’t help but smile at the sight of her, because she’s _here,_ but also because she’s _teeny tiny_. Of course, he didn’t expect her to reach his towering stature, but there was something so amusing about reuniting with someone who was such a large force in his memory, only to find that she could easily fit on one couch cushion.

They don’t have much furniture, for gross college boys reasons, not money reasons. Dimitri realizes that he would rather not let Edelgard know he left at all, anyway, if he can help it, so he settles back down to where he sat before. As he does, he hears a tinny, buzzy noise behind him, and turns to find that Edelgard has earbuds in. He doesn’t recognize what she’s listening to, but whatever it is is very, very loud. Fearing for her hearing, he carefully, carefully traces the cord to her phone, and unplugs it.

He lets himself slouch, folds his hands in his lap, begins to drift…

…Hears his name.

Edelgard is mumbling, barely audible. He looks back at her and she does it again, too quiet to hear other than an almost musical lilt and a soft little _’mitri._

Curious, he leans in, smiling.

Edelgard is smiling, too, and one of her eyes opens just a crack.

_“...Dimitri has a boy~friend...!”_

“Ah-h,” shudders Dimitri. He tugs the corner of her blanket up over her face and tucks it behind her head with a bunch of shaky, gentle tippy taps of his fingertips. “Back to sleep. Ssshhh. It was just a dream. Go back to sleep.” 

She's laughing, then he's laughing, and when they're done with that they eventually doze, picking up right where they left off.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this, then realized Soft Dots felt complete without it, and got embarrassed, and no one commented on it, so I took it down. then MULTIPLE PEOPLE materialized from the ether like WHERE DID IT GO, so now it's back over here with some edits and tweaks and you had BETTER pat my back about it or i WILL feel silly  
> ( i am also on twitter now @goofylionking )


End file.
